Tag Archives: Christianity

It opens with Jesus and His disciples arriving at Capernaum and Jesus asks them “What were you arguing about on the road?” but they all stay silent because they were arguing about who was the greatest. They all want to be the greatest but they don’t want to fess up to it but Jesus knows their hearts and Jesus cares to sow into them. Jesus replies to them with this :

“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

– Mark 9:35

What a slap in the face it must have been to the disciples! Like OH DANG, Jesus knows what we were talking and arguing about and now He’s rebuking us, awww mannn. What do you mean the greatest has to be the servant of all and the very last? :( The craziest thing is though, I’m pretty sure Jesus is actually talking about Himself here because just a few verses ago He was saying :

“The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.
They will kill Him, and after three days He will rise.”

– Mark 9:31

Jesus upon the cross was the servant of all. He became the absolute very last as He was scorned, beaten, mocked, shamed and ultimately crucified. He died for all of mankind, to be their servant, dying in their place means that He ended up in dead last. (Pun absolutely not intentional ;P)

But this is EXACTLY the reason why Jesus then becomes the first. Jesus because He was the last becomes the first. Jesus is the first and the last. As He rose again and ascended to sit at the right hand of God he became the GREATEST that the disciples were arguing over.

I wrote a random poem at the end as I was thinking about how insanely logic defying what Jesus did on the cross for mankind.

Everyone wants to be the greatest but they don’t realise the cost
They don’t realise that Jesus is the greatest because He goes to the cross
You can see the significance of it all
As you see that which He lost

Relation with the Father, broken as the Father’s face turned away
On the cross did He hang because love drove Him to stay
So that the world would all hear, so they would know and believe
That Jesus alone is the Life, Truth and the Way

“If anyone wants to be first, He must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

Today I spent so much of my day running from God. It started really well actually, had a job interview in the morning that went really well, did my laundry, felt great! Then the girl I’ve been pursuing cancels on coffee this week (which I was totally looking forward to D=) because she’s sick, which is totally fine! But… as I was rescheduling with her it seemed more and more like she wasn’t as keen as I was. Huge bummer because I thought I had moved out of the friendzone.

It hurt.

The rest of the day was mostly a blur, my brain felt groggy and slow and my emotions were everywhere. I also felt like I was avoiding God not really wanting to talk to Him or hear from Him.

I guess I felt far from Him because I was pushing Him away.

At least until now at the classic time of 2:11am where I just have to talk to God and face Him otherwise I’d probably explode.

Time to uncover and face my insecurities.

I decided to go back to one of the habits I used to have which was Praying through the Psalms and decided to write out some prayers I had in response to some of Psalm 9.

“I will praise You, O LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all Your wonders.
I will be glad and rejoice in You;
I will sing praises to Your name, O MOST High.”

-Psalm 9:1-2

Father God would You help me to remember Your goodness and character.

Help me to praise You with every single bit of my heart not with holding anything for myself.

Would I testify to Your goodness to all around me.

I drew a heart on the side of that verse and coloured it in and wrote : “ALL my heart. NOT SOME.” I knew that I wanted to hold parts of my heart to myself and not give it over to God in praise. But that’s not how worship is, God demands ALL of us, not SOME of us, not MOST of us, but ALL of us. Not even 99%. I can’t hold even that 1%.

Would God take ALL of me and would I be a living sacrifice giving Him the praise that He deserves.

“Those who know Your name will trust You,
for You, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek You.”

-Psalm 9:10

I’m sorry that I forgot You were near me God and that I didn’t trust You. I looked at my own insecurities and fears and tried to deal with them myself.

Would You help me to seek You knowing that You are near, knowing that Your Spirit dwells within me.

Would You help me to trust You, knowing that I can’t actually deal with these things myself.

This verse hit me hard when I read it out loud. It was as if God was speaking to me showing me pretty clearly that I had forgotten all about Him today. But it felt like He was speaking to me so gently at the same time… it wasn’t like He was condemning me or putting me down but instead… reassuring me. “Trust me for I am WITH YOU” is what I felt He was saying to me.

What an insanely timely comfort.

You know that feeling of peace inside that comes only after You’ve given everything to God? Yeah… that’s how I feel now. I’m still sad, and I’m still not sure what’s up with things but I do know the more important things. God’s calling me to walk with Him, to remember that He is near and to praise Him. I don’t know a lot of things in my life, but if I can be walking with God, remembering that He’s near and praising Him I’m sure things will turn out just fine :)

“The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.”

Hey homie I just read Mark 6:1-6. Jesus goes back to His hometown and they don’t respond well to Him, in fact they’re described to have an amazing lack of faith! It ends up with Jesus not doing many miracles there except heal a few sick people.

The people of Nazareth is another example of how people react to who Jesus is. They live by sight and doubt who He is because of what they’ve seen.

The People of Nazareth

It’s starts off with Jesus teaching in the synagogue and “many who heard Him were amazed…” but they’re not amazed for what you might think. They begin asking questions like “Where did this man get these things?” and “What’s this wisdom that has been given Him, that He even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s Son…” They’re extremely doubtful of Jesus because they’re remembering who He was when He was growing up and living here before He began His public ministry. He surely can’t be anything else!

The people of Nazareth have a lack of faith because they’re focusing on what they’ve seen only. They don’t even consider if what Jesus is saying to them is true, if He is who He says He is.

Jesus

Jesus sees this and is “amazed at their lack of faith.” They give Jesus’ Words absolutely no consideration, not even the slightest chance. They deny who Jesus is by relying on their sight. They live by sight and not by faith. Just as C.S Lewis argues, Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic or LORD. It seems that the people of Nazareth see Him as both a liar and a lunatic.

They deny who Jesus is as they live by sight and not by faith.

Application

From seeing this I asked myself:

How do I deny His character?

How do I fail to respond to who Jesus is?

How do I live by sight instead of trusting in God’s promises?

How do I deny His character?

I often deny the fact that Jesus is enough in the way I see relationships. I can sometimes feel that if I had a partner I would be happier, more satisfied or more fulfilled. This is a straight up lie. In fact human partners are all deficient, they can never satisfy me the way that I intrinsically need because it’s only found in Jesus.

Jesus is absolutely enough for me.

How do I fail to respond to who Jesus is?

Jesus is king. He is LORD above all. But if someone was to look at how I live would they see that Jesus is Lord over all of my life? Maybe on the surface they would, “Oh! You’re involved in ministry and all these great leadership roles! You must be having Jesus as Lord over all of your life!” But what about my time at home? What about all the time I spend procrastinating because I’m too lazy and slothful?

I need to be intentional with the way I spend my time at home, one of the ways for me to do this is cut down on the time I spend watching YouTube and rest in a way that will actually help me look at Jesus.

I want to live in a way that shows to everyone that I live for a King who is not myself. I live for a Kingdom that is not here.

How do I live by sight instead of trusting in God’s promises?

I live by faith because I trust in myself, my skills and my gifts as I serve in ministry. I get the delusion that past ministries have borne much fruit because of how skillful I was, how gifted I was, how much I tried to achieve success through them. In reality they bear fruit because God is Sovereign and He always works by His Spirit whenever His Word is opened to achieve His purposes. I try to claim His success as my all and delude myself to thinking that I’m the important gear that makes everything run. Only God does this. If it was reliant upon me everything would legitimately fall apart.

One way that I can stay humble and remember to rely upon God’s promises instead of what I can achieve is by staying in prayer. Prayer is how you can really tell if someone trusts God or not.

Prayer is NOT the preparation for the more important thing.It IS the more important thing.

“Jesus said to them, “Only in His hometown, among His relatives and in His own house is a prophet without honour.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them. And He was amazed at their lack of faith.”